Windows Terminal Server on Proxmox !?

[El Muchacho]

we've migrated our complete environment to proxmox.
One of the virtual machines is a Windows 2008 R2 Terminal Server.
The MS-SQL is also running in a VM on the same host.
Performance is fine ... including disc and network

Only the video performance is not the best.
f.e.: Results of a database search displays "line by line" ...

Our old 2003 R2 Terminal didn't had that problem.
Is that due to the video driver !?
Which one should I use?

Currently I'm using "Standard VGA".

Any ideas?

regards

Rico

 

[WaltervdSchee]

If you are using RDP (like using Terminal Server suggests) that is not depended upon the physical servers' graphics performance, since its a network protocol.
If you are refering to the performance of the console via the browser based ProxMox frontend, then you should be using SPICE.

 

[fireon]

No, it depends on the graphic too! We tested for a wile with citrix and set an graphicscard passthrough to the VM, and the results where great, i 've done an 3D Benchmark over RDP. And it has worked very fine! I have not tested it with Proxmox. Hope passthrough for graphicscards are alos posible.

But yes, the most problem is the Network, and the graphic from the local Client. For example: Igelclients are full trash. Price and Hardware. Very good are Zotac with Nvidiachip (actually id45, id45) We boot the Clients with Edubuntu LTSP Server over PXE, and then start automaticly the RDP connection, the performance is amazing.

 

[pirateghost]

RDP works fine in my environment. There is no reliance on the graphic performance of the vm host, or of the RDP host

 

[El Muchacho]

thx for the infos ...

I've tried running our Programm direktly on the sql-machine ... same prob ...
results after a search comin' in "line by line" ...

So I agree with fireon ...
I'll test it with pci-passthrough ...

Which one is preferred for that?

Think, I'll gonna try a passive card ... f.e. nvidia 2x or 7x
Or better an ATI?

greetz

Rico

 

[pirateghost]

thx for the infos ...

I've tried running our Programm direktly on the sql-machine ... same prob ...
results after a search comin' in "line by line" ...

So I agree with fireon ...
I'll test it with pci-passthrough ...

Which one is preferred for that?

Think, I'll gonna try a passive card ... f.e. nvidia 2x or 7x
Or better an ATI?

greetz

Rico

I don't think video card is the answer

 

[fireon]

The keything is the networkconnection! Test it first with an Ubuntu Live, copy an ISO. When you have 110mb/s then your network is ok. implementate http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/ . It is also depending on the application what you will run under Windows Terminalserver. MS Office 2010 is working fine without graphicscard. BMD Software was only running fine with graphicscard. So it is depending on many things.

We had an Nvidia, i don't know the model, but i about 900€, about for 15 - 20 Workstations.

 

[wahmed]

It does depend on the video card and also as pirateghost pointed out Video card is also not the answer.

We have 2 RDP platforms one for 38 users and the other 14. Both are on Windows Server 2008 R2. We tweaked our Windows for performance rather than graphic experience such as basic theme without any eye candy. For display adapter we are using both Standard VGA and SPICE. But this does not seem to make any difference. Both platforms are remotely accessed without any local user. User can play streaming video such as YouTube without any issue but only with Firefox. We do not have any graphics card other than builtin graphic. PDF with heavy graphic scrolls not smooth but enough not to frustrate user.

The only way you will get full performance like a desktop is if you use RemoteFX. But then you need Windows Hyper-V platform. I dont believe pci passthrough make a whole lot of difference in this. If you setup a Hyper-V RemoteFX with a graphic card you will be amazed at the performance of RDP. That also means you have to move your platform to Windows and leave amazing hypervisor platform Proxmox behind and all the goodness such as shared storage, firewall etc etc.

After trying for months we now have happy users who do not mind occasional lag. But its mostly due to the internet connection between the server and the user. We also have fixed memory for both Windows.

 

[El Muchacho]

I've tried more things to figure out the problem ...
We've installed TeamViewer on all related VMs.
Starting our Business Software directly on the Terminal via Teamviewer works slightly faster than via RDP.
Copied the Software to our SQL-Server and launched it on that host in Teamviewer. Also really faster. Nearly no lags.

So I agree with the hint to the network connection and tested it with iperf.
Started Server on SQL and Client on Terminal (both VMs on same host)
Result: 1.44GB/s!
Copied an SQL-Backup from SQL to Terminal via a Share. 90 - 105 MB/s

That looks fine in my opinion.

Our Hardware-Setup for Proxmox:
Dual XEON E4-2609
64GB RAM
4TB RAID 10 on LSI MegaRAID 9260-8 with BBU (VMs use cache=write-back for HDs)
GB-LAN

Clients:
almost WIN7x64, some WIN8.1

I'll do more tests with PCI-Passthrough and a 2012 with RemoteFX if i got some time ...

 

[pirateghost]

As stated already, I don't think PCI pass through to your video card is the answer. You have something fundamentally wrong with your setup.

 

[El Muchacho]

Not fundamentally

Found something more ...
"Clear Type" is the killer for my behaviour ...
It's needed for some apps on lan-side because types are nearly unreadably in fullscreen mode ...
But it's not needed on wan-side ...
ticked it off and now it's really faster when displaying db-requests ...
This prob now only located at one location, which is connected via a 2MBit-S-DSL
There are 5 to 10 users ...
And is far as i know, 2008R2 takes more bandwith than 2003R2 ...
Old server works fine with 20-30k per user ...
New server needs min. 50k per user ... much more when using clear type ...

greetz

Rico